


Red Hands + White Knuckles

by CypressSunn



Series: One Hundred and One Shots [1]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>restraint had never been damon's strong suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Hands + White Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opheliahyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliahyde/gifts).



> For Heather, who prompted the first draft.

it starts the morning he bites into a blood-bag and spits out a mouthful of vervain across the dining table. it ends days later when every blood bank in every neighboring county has the same contaminated blood. the taste testing process is grueling. the blood always goes down rich and easy at first. the vervain, like any good poison, is more of an aftertaste. sour, drying, corrosive. it leaves Damon more hungry than he was before his first sip.

bonnie promises to practice a few purifying spells but makes no guarantees.

“most of these spells are for toxins,” she tells him, helping him clean the wreckage of the failed tasting trials. they’re in the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder give or take a few inches, up to their elbows in rain boot yellow rubber gloves and liquid red gore. there had been a few regurgitatous spit takes onto his hand carved french regency dining table. the table that bonnie was now damaging beyond repair with too much bleach and the careless strokes of a short bristle brush. “vervain is more of a ward created by nature itself.”

“meaning magic doesn’t like to work against its self or in the best interests of my lunch.”

“basically,” she accentuates with another splash of bleach.

“do the words ‘irreplaceable’ or ‘antique’ mean anything to you?” she shakes her head no with one of her little irreverent grins. which really, damon should have expected. the only time he was ever invited into the bennett household had been when he had helped her sell it. it had been small and sad and full of laminate counters and linoleum. honestly, he shouldn’t have had to offer her a room at the boarding house on six separate occasions. 

“in the meantime,” bonnie says, pinching one glove between her still covered first finger and thumb to peel it away, “i do have a quick fix for you.”

“a party bus from an out of state sorority just passing through town?” damon flicks off his own gloves and clutches his heart "oh bonnie, you shouldn’t have-”

“quit being gross or you can keep up the crash diet.” and with no other warning, bonnie extends her upturned wrist just under his chin in offering. and in the seconds that follow, damon isn’t completely himself- 

-except for that he is.

the words ‘live’ and 'warm’ and 'bonnie’ are all that translates when his hands clamp down on her wrist and forearm in a vice. his fangs sink into her skin and into her radial artery- oh, that’s the stuff. thick and rounded, sweet like nectar. undertones more like brass than iron, because it’s bonnie. bonnie who’s eyes had gone wide, muscles taut, voice strained, saying something and nothing. all he heard was her pulse, fastened beneath him, rushing and perfect and-

burning.

he lets her loose when her hand connects to the side of his face. an open palmed slap with her free gloved hand, still covered in tainted blood. the vervain sets into his skin like acid, as does the sight of bonnie dropping to the floor, cradling her wrist and bloodying her shirt.

the faint thought of 'what a waste’ runs through his mind as he watches the spreading blush of red, still transfixed by her taste but paralyzed by the poison. fainter still, he hears her now. shaking and sputtering through a whispered incantation. feverish words he’d heard so many witches recite in the past; a healing spell.

but she can’t get through the latin. she can’t stop bleeding.

and then once again damon is not himself. he’s biting into his wrist and kneeling beside her, doesn’t give her the chance to accept or decline his blood. see how she likes it.

(he had.)

“i’m not going to hurt you.” he tells her, more angry than soothing, refusing to let her pull away. 

“you’re damn right you’re not.” she spits his own blood back in his face, but it does the trick just the same. her wound seals up, and this time when she slaps him the only sting is of her skin against his. which is good. her strength is back, her arm no longer limp. but her heart is still palpitating.

“you offered-” he starts, but the indignation in her eyes cuts him short. and of course damon felt his own vexation rise to the occasion in matching hers. what had she expected exactly? for him to say 'thanks but no thanks’? for him to develop a sudden affinity for self restrain? for him to white-knuckle it when it was her,  _her_ , that was plying her lifeblood beneath him? and he was ravenous. starved for this, this and-

“sorry if i expected better table manners.”

oh. so that then.

she says nothing else in the time it takes her to wipe away the last of him from her mouth with the back of her hand, push up onto her feet, and retreat from the kitchen. she does not once look back at him still kneeling in her blood. damon fights the too real impulse to follow, instead listening acutely to her steps that hurry up the stairs, down the hallways to her room, and the slamming of her door.

he heard more incantations, brief and sharp before her voice cut out as sudden as a dropped call. if soundproofing spells existed, this must have been it. she seemed to be nowhere now. nowhere except in her spilled scent across the tiles and the memory of her taste in his throat.

and if damon dragged his fingers across those same tiles, bringing precious droplets of red, droplets of _bonnie_ , to his mouth for one shameless last taste, then that was nobody's business.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my 101 Shots challenge, prompt #63: Red


End file.
